Slave (dying)

c. 1513
Marble, height 229 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Contrary to what its title suggests, this figure does not represent a dying man, but a sleeping one. Like the Rebellious Slave, this slave also has chains on his arm, which have been loosed. Therefore he is no longer the prisoner of his body, if one wants to consider the slaves as being souls imprisoned in their bodies. Behind him, the roughly sketched outlines of a monkey can be seen, which has caused some researchers to believe this slave to be the incarnation of painting and the rebellious slave to symbolize architecture.